Bits & Pieces 04.06.2018

MOLD RIOTS 1869 (Update)

In my previous post I mentioned the Mold Riots of 1869, which resulted in four locals being shot dead by soldiers brought in from Chester, with many more wounded, resulting from unrest at Leeswood Green colliery – situated between Mold and Wrecsam – following the appointment of English manager, John Young, his treatment of the miners and his hostility towards the Welsh language.

Determined to get more information on this episode of Welsh history that has been largely ignored outside of the immediate vicinity, I started trawling the internet. One piece I came across was on the Hiraeth website (a site previously unknown to me), and while the site narrative followed the accepted version there was a curious panel insert offering a very different version.

So curious is it that it deserves to be analysed in some detail.

click to enlarge

First off, the writer of the panel, David Rowe, tells us, “There is no evidence that the use of Cymraeg was banned by Young”. (Note the use of the ‘I’m on your side’ ‘Cymraeg’ rather than ‘Welsh’.)

And yet, the novelist Daniel Owen, who lived in Mold at the time, and wrote about the events in Rhys Lewis, was in no doubt that the curtailing or prohibition of the use of Welsh in the mine was one of the causes of the unrest that culminated in the riots.

So do we believe a Welsh speaker, an observant man native to the area, with no political axe to grind, who almost certainly spoke with those involved, and therefore wrote from first-hand knowledge; or do we believe David Rowe, who comes from north east England, as did John Young?

I know who my money’s on.

Rowe continues, “Indeed, during one of the two trials associated with the events, a number of the defendants were provided with a translator as they did not speak English.” He could well be right, but this is a non-sequitur because the trials were not organised by John Young. This contribution has no value beyond establishing that many of those involved spoke little or no English.

Soon after we read, ” . . . it is also perhaps worth noting that very little is said about the injuries suffered by the army and police prior to them opening fire. Two of the eighteen injured police officers, Superintendent Thomas and Sergeant Dew, never returned to work and of the latter it was reported that ‘his helmet was smashed in, a stone was afterwards found inside it’”

This is almost unbelievable. Rowe seems to be arguing that stones thrown at police and soldiers justified those soldiers firing into a crowd containing women and children, and killing two women!

As for Superintendent Thomas and Sergeant Dew not returning to work, was this due to the severity of their injuries, or did they just take early retirement?

Rowe’s interpretation goes on, “The affair was not supported by Mold townspeople and shopkeepers, and the miners took their business to Wrexham.” Here we have something else that needs to be taken with a dollop of Halen Môn. The miners worked at Leeswood, which lies between Mold and Wrecsam, many of them may have lived nearer to Wrecsam than to Mold, and may always have done their shopping in the larger town.

But the intention is clear – ‘These were a few hotheads ostracised by the local community’. A crude smear.

And yet, for the wrong reason, Rowe may be right. For in Rhys Lewis, Daniel Owen has chapel elder Abel Hughes, say, “But these strikes are a very strange thing. They’re things that have come from the English; they don’t belong to us, and I fear that they will do a lot of harm to this country”. (Translation: SM.)

So if the locals of Mold kept their distance from the strikers this could be because they regarded strikes as an unwanted English importation. Which would mean that the strikers were not behaving in an acceptably Welsh way.

David Rowe concludes with a ‘lived happily ever after’ element in the form of, “(Young) went back to Leeswood Green Colliery and one of the original rioters is later described as being his ‘right hand man’.” Perhaps an attempt at bridge-building forced on Young by the mine-owners?

Though seeing as there were hundreds of rioters this doesn’t really say much.

Interestingly, Rowe neglects to address the matter of Young bringing in English miners and giving them the best diggings. This may have been as much a cause of the trouble, perhaps more so, than Young’s hostility to the Welsh language.

Now I’ve been around long enough to recognise a whitewash when I read it, the sanitisation of historical events to suit a political or other agenda, and that’s exactly what we have here.

To paraphrase David Rowe.

John Young was victimised by a small group of nasty, xenophobic Welsh miners. The behaviour of this malign element was countered with the civilising influence of English soldiers who were provoked beyond endurance and were fully justified in firing on a crowd of (allegedly) unarmed people. Following the riots the strikers were again proven to be just a few hotheads representing no one but themselves when they were shunned by the people of Mold. 

Rowe strikes me as one of those of whom we have too many in Wales today. They move in and in a very short time have taken over local clubs and associations, setting themselves up as experts on all things Welsh, all things local, and because of our inbuilt timidity resulting from centuries of brainwashing, we allow them to get away with it.

But not on this blog, pal.

Malcolm X once said, “Only a fool would let his enemy educate his children” I think we can add, ‘Only a nation of fools would let its history be interpreted by its enemies’.

HOW A COLONIAL ECONOMY OPERATES

Princes Gate

I’m sure many of you have drunk Princes Gate bottled water, I know I have, though I must admit I was never sure where it came from. Now I learn there’s a little place called Princes Gate a couple of miles south east of Narberth in Pembrokeshire, not far from Cold Blow.

And it’s there we find the company run by brothers David and Glyn Jones. It’s in the news because they’ve sold out to Nestlé. Which I find concerning for two reasons.

click to enlarge

To begin with, we see an old story retold – Welsh company starts up, grows, becomes profitable and desirable, with the result that it is bought out, usually by a larger English company, and often closed down, with production moved to England.

Though in the case of Princes Gate the new owner is mega multinational Nestlé, and seeing as it bottles local water production certainly can’t be transferred, though the operation might still be closed down if Nestlé felt it had too many producers of bottled water, or if the market took a dip.

Of more concern for many than job losses is Nestlé’s reputation in the field of water extraction, and how its operations impact on neighbours and the wider environment.

Here are two reports on Nestlé operations in the USA; one in California, and one in Michigan. The allegations are that Nestlé pays a pittance for the right to extract water, extracts more than it should, lowers the water table and affects everyone else, and generally puts its own corporate interests above all other considerations.

Nestlé hasn’t bought Princes Gate to lose money, and given the company’s global track record it’s reasonable to assume that it will seek to increase production. Increasing production can only mean extracting more water, and this will inevitably lower the water table and affect the local environment.

Which is what Princes Gate was accused of doing in 2016. Maybe the effect the increased production was having on neighbours they knew and socialised with held Dai and Glyn Jones back from further expansion. It may be why they’re selling up.

Multinational Nestlé with its army of lawyers and ‘experts’ will have no qualms about pissing off the neighbours.

One to watch, methinks.

Arla ‘Welsh’ Cheese

Moving north, another recent story concerned the Arla cheese plant at Llandyrnog, a few miles east of Denbigh. It seems that the Danish company that owns the plant is transferring production to Devon but will still call the product ‘Welsh cheese’.

This, again, is an old refrain, for many of us will remember the closure of creameries in the south west in the 1970s and 1980s, with politicians doing nothing to help as production was, again, transferred to England. Milk from Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire is still heading for the border every day. As one respondent to a tweet I put out said, “You only need to go to Cross Hands (on the A48, just shy of the M4) any day of the week to see tens of articulated tankers filled with Welsh milk destined for dairies in England.”

Picture: BBC Wales (click to enlarge)

Why is this still happening twenty years into devolution? Even allowing for the fact that the Poverty Party cares nothing for rural areas the other parties could surely be applying pressure? Or, come to that, why can’t our farmers organise themselves, as farmers in Ireland and other countries have done, why rely on foreign companies to come in and rip them off?

Raw materials and unfinished good being taken out of a poor country to be finished and profited from in a controlling richer country is the classic definition of a colonial economy.

One the best illustrations of this comes from pre-independence Cuba where the locals were allowed to grow tobacco which was then shipped to Spain in its raw state to be made into cigars. With the jobs and the profits of course accruing to Spain.

Twenty-first century Wales is catching up fast with nineteenth-century Cuba. What a testament that is to English ownership and ‘Welsh’ Labour management of our country!

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Many observers, of a leftist or ‘progressive’ bent, have enjoyed drawing silly parallels lately. For example, the election of Donald Trump is compared to Hitler taking power in 1933, people refusing to be silenced by political correctness are the harbingers of global fascism, and the rise of anti-establishment movements is the first step on the road to totalitarianism.

All bollocks of course, because if there is any parallel to be drawn with the past, certainly in these offshore islands, then we need to go back a few centuries. I’m thinking of a time when England was trying to take complete control over the other countries with varying degrees of support and opposition coming from within those countries.

If we take Ireland in the medieval period, there was support for the English presence from the ‘Old English’, before their position was usurped (because they remained Catholic) by the Protestant Ascendancy, which in turn was replaced by the Presbyterian Scots, mainly in Ulster but also in the other Provinces.

Today the descendants of those settlers from Lowland Scotland wield great power in the UK government, for the Democratic Unionist Party, founded by the Reverend Doctor Ian Kyle Paisley, is keeping Mrs May’s shower afloat. Another face of Unionism-Loyalism is of course the Orange Order.

Among these Loyalists we find some thuggish elements, as we saw in George Square, Glasgow, the day after the independence referendum in September 2014. What we also saw in George Square that day were plenty of fascist salutes, reminding us of how Loyalism and fascism often merge into the ultimate expression of ‘British values’. Something to which critics of ‘nationalism’ seem blind.

The Orangemen are to hold a big march at the end of this month in Cowdenbeath, Fife, and the guest speaker is Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP. This is unusual for a number of reasons, not least that the Orange Order’s attitude towards women has historically mirrored that of the Freemasons, an organisation with which it has always had strong links – ‘Make the tea, doll’.

There can be no question that inviting the leader of the DUP to Scotland is designed to send a message to the SNP about its thinking on a second independence referendum. It might even be a threat. It would be interesting to know if the UK government had a hand in the invitation.

But it could all be counter-productive when we remember the kind of bigots and outright nutters that inhabit the Unionist-royalist-Loyalist-BritNat-fascist continuum. Fortunately, the latest issue of Private Eye reminds us of some of the stars to be found in the Democratic Unionist Party.

click to enlarge

Top of the bill must be the Reverend William ‘Boxcar Willie’ McCrea. As the Eye tells us, “According to official papers released three years ago, after the American air raids on Tripoli in 1986, Boxcar Willie asked the Thatcher government to launch similar missile attacks on the Irish Republic. A memo from an official in the Northern Ireland Office noted: ‘Rev William McCrea urged Libya-style strikes against Dundalk, Drogheda, Crossmaglen and Carrickmore’.”

Which is even more insane than it initially reads – for Crossmaglen and Carrickmore are actually in Northern Ireland; Republican strongholds, admittedly, but still in Northern Ireland. So this lunatic wanted the UK government to bomb parts of the United Kingdom and kill people who were – however reluctantly – British subjects!

And now he’s in the House of Lords. It would be easy to be flippant and say that’s where he belongs, among lots of other old tossers. But he’s there because his party is propping up – and influencing – the UK government. And remember, Boxcar Willie and the DUP represent the acceptable face of Unionism. Just think what the arse-end looks like!

Finally, consider this: there will soon be a Catholic majority in the Six Counties, and this will inevitably be followed by a united Ireland (if Brexit doesn’t do it). As the Unionist-Loyalist Götterdämmerung approaches many of Boxcar Willie’s fervid supporters will be looking for somewhere else to settle. (Unless they decide to go out with an OAS-style bang.)

When that happens I guarantee some will be ‘directed’ to Wales. So maybe you’d better prepare yourself for this sort of thing along Aberystwyth Promenade.

PUTTING FAITH IN CARWYN

The ugly lovely town has taken a few to the nuts of late: first it was the decision not to electrify the railway line from London beyond Cardiff; then, last month, we lost 800 jobs when Virgin Media pulled out; the Swans have been relegated, the Ospreys knocked off their perch; and now it seems we are not getting the tidal lagoon either.

But Carwyn Jones, our beloved and respected First Minister, has reiterated his government’s support for the project with, “The Welsh Government remains committed to the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon and we stand ready to provide significant financial backing to help make it a reality”Can’t say fairer than that!

Though I wonder if he’s not giving himself – or his successor – up as a hostage to fortune. Because if, as expected, the UK government pulls the plug this week on the lagoon project then people in Wales, and especially those around Swansea Bay, will expect Carwyn Jones to come riding to the rescue.

But will that happen? And is there anything he can really do?

Picture: Tidal Lagoon Power (click to enlarge)

Carwyn Jones seems to be offering money, but I’m not sure that’s the sticking point. I believe there’d be no difficulty finding funding for the project – if the UK government agrees to take the power produced, which it seems unwilling to do.

Because the sticking point is the ‘strike price’ asked by those operating the lagoon, which according to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is significantly higher than the price agreed for electricity supplied by the Hinckley Point nuclear power station in Somerset.

Yet operators Tidal Lagoon Power (TLP) disagree, saying they had previously asked for a 90-year contract with the UK government with an average strike price of £89.90 per megawatt hour. The new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C in Somerset was given a strike price of £92.50/MWh for 35 years.

It begins to look as if, for whatever reason, the UK government just doesn’t want tidal energy, or maybe it’s tidal energy in Wales it doesn’t want. Either way, it looks as if the project is dead. However . . . if the ‘Welsh’ Government’s money can bring down the strike price it might be difficult for London to remain intransigent.

The announcement later this week will be Mrs May lobbing the ball into Carwyn’s court. It’ll then be up to him how he plays it.

Will it be a thundering cross-court volley leaving Theresa May sprawling? Might it be an elegant backhand drawing oohs and aahs from the sun-drenched crowd? Or will he stumble and smash it into the net, as usual?

♦ end ♦

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Dafis

Enemy aircraft over Sir Feirionydd ….. nuisance more than threatening. Noise pollution must harm livestock and upset sensitive souls like some of those migrants who are afraid of their country residences catching fire ! Anyone got a SAM handy ? would be good to see how smart the evasive skillset is when a real missile gets lobbed from a hilltop higher than the flight path. Or is this a disloyal heresy ?

Dafis

Interesting to read the thoughts of some Union official in S.E.England whose fear of thirst brought on by drought prompted him to cast his eyes westwards. I’m surprised the ignorant pig knew where the Elan Valley reservoirs are located. He should also be advised that while the Severn may pass close to the Cotswold canal system the Wye flows some way to the west ( or did someone run a ditch from Hereford to Worcester, or Ross to say Tewkesbury ?). Anyway enough of the hypothetical possibilities. The grim reality is that the Trade Union like most other colonist entities thinks that its a straight forward case of entitlement – “we’ve taken what we wanted in the past and we can do it again”. Sadly we can’t count on the compliant Carwyn or any of his immediate lieutenants in the Bay, or any of his bruvvers at Wales TUC, to tell the Sais Unionist bluntly to “fuck right off” and find his water somewhere else, as it never occurs to these arrogant bastards that coming along with a sensible commercial proposition might get a more neighbourly response.

Funny how the English think they can take the water for nothing and dump the expensive end of their social costs onto Wales without offering proper funding of the revenue and capital costs.

David Robins

Claerwen, Clywedog. Same thing, innit?

Elan water, when it gets to the Frankley storage reservoir at Brum, could be piped to the Grand Union Canal and thence to London. When Elan was being planned, there was a race between Brum and London as to who could get the parliamentary powers first. Brum had more friends in the right places.

Severn water could indeed be moved via the Cotswolds canals. Bristol Water gets over half its total possible supply from the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal. Someone surely must be being paid for it but I doubt it’s Wales.

http://www.bristolwater.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Sources.pdf

Dafis

David, your opening phrase sums up the Anglo attitude that Wales is one big reservoir to be tapped at will. We’ve had this recent quote from some Trade union officer (who tried a mealy mouthed retraction later) and of course the windbag Boris has come up with bright ideas about moving water resources to the South East in the past. Why don’t they fix their leaky pipes instead, stop clean water from just flowing away into the rest of the shit that lies under London? But there again that doesn’t fit the template of high profile vanity project which London types crave – if you ain’t spending big on some new shiny idea it ain’t worth talking about ! Sooner we cut them adrift and let them fend for themselves the better for the rest of us.

Brychan

Welsh water is only exported to the North West of England and the Midlands because it ‘saves’ damaging the environment in England and the Welsh landscape treated as a cheap colonial resource.

Further south, there are already two tunnels through the Hafren estuary. The electricity tunnel and the rail tunnel. Both suffer a problem of the vast quantities of fresh water that have to be pumped out. It was named the Great Spring when the Severn tunnel was bored. It’s from an aquifer (Mendip run off) below the pennant sandstone cap. This water is pumped out on the English side at Sudbrook, is not needed as there is ample water supply to Bristol, as David Robins eloquently describes.

The ‘water shortage’ in England only really exists in London and the home counties and has become ‘critical’ in Kent due to over-abstraction from the chalk aquifer. There is a freshwater aquifer in the chalk marl of the channel tunnel but this water ‘sealed out’ by the concrete tube, as abstraction would result in aquafer drainage causing environmental damage to the landscape on the English side. However the aquifer of north Kent has already been over abstracted resulting in environmental damage (chalk streams drying up).

https://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/groundwater/shaleGas/aquifersAndShales/maps/aquifers/Chalk.html

It is for this reason that the likely channel for water replenishment to the South East of England would be a Birmingham to Oxford connection, with Birmingham getting it’s main supply from the reservoirs of mid Wales. It is for this reason the recourse is not Welsh controlled and why Severn Trent Water owns that chunk of Wales. It should also be noted that the once proposed ‘Cambrian Mountains National Park’ never came into existence, and much of the landholding is now owned by concerns from the West Midlands.

I would expect a future increase in reservoir capacity in mid Wales to be proposed under the cloak of ‘protecting the environment’. The environment in England, that is, and to hell with Wales. They could blame it on ‘global warming’.

Brychan

Just thought I’d use a comment on this blog to clarify issues over ‘strike price’, the amount per MWh the UK government commits to purchasing electricity off new power stations. The source of my data is the existing deals that apply to wind generation, the agreement struck for Hinkley Point, and the proposed ones for Wylfa and the Swansea Lagoon. Key is the length of time the asset is in service and the strike price applies.

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7940/CBP-7940.pdf
C – Authors and Westminster House Library April 2018.

£160.00 Offshore Wind (20years)
£140.00 Onshore Wind (25years)

£95.50 Hinkey Point Nuclear (40years)
£77.50 Wylfa Nuclear (40years)

£168.00 Swansea Lagoon (35years)
£89.90 Swansea Lagoon (front weighted 90years)
£89.90 Swansea Lagoon (flat 120years)

We know that due to wear and tear and environmental conditions that the lifespan estimate of wind generation is accurately known. We also know that the lifespan of nuclear power stations due to previous investments across the globe (although costs of decommissioning and waste storage is not included and is an ongoing burden on the taxpayer). Thing about the lifespan of a tidal lagoon, is that it’s over 100 years, and this is the number that SHOULD be used in determining the strike price. The high figure assumes a lifespan of 35 years, which is nonsense, however, it’s the maximum lifespan determined on existing infrastructure investments by HM Treasury.

I think it can be assumed that after 35 years, Swansea will not disappear, so in reality the £89.90 strike price is not only reliable, it’s more robust than the others.

Dafis

Would you believe it ? less than a day after we commented on the gross imbalance of priorities in the water and other privatised sectors up pops the good old Grinder with its own take on the matter.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/05/water-companies-pay-national-scandal-gmb-union-says?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=277105&subid=18089214&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

Even picking on the lady running Severn Trent who used to be a darling of the pseudo socialist chatterati. Must have caught her behaving like a bloke ! Anyway it reinforces the point about these spivs having a good old laugh at our expense, while today’s (repeated) stories about the UK’s rail services makes you want to take someone out for a good hiding ! And that twat Grayling obviously never travels by rail, offering yet another inquiry as his response to the mess. They can inquire as much as they like but it’s time someone got off his fat arse and did some real thinking and working.

Dafis

The rail franchise for Wales extends beyond Chester to Liverpool simply so that Scousers can be put on a train and relocated to Wales with a promise that they can cause as much trouble as they like and scoff as much free medication as they can handle.
Seriously though you wonder whether it occured to the muppets down the Bay to raise a bloody big charge on Westminster for including such lines in the framework of a Welsh franchise. Just a rhetorical question – we know the answer already !

edryd

Swansea Bay TV was also recently sold to a company from over the border. It used to be a great little channel with some classic films shown on a sunday afternoon and local TV presenters reading the news. Now sadly the films have stopped and the news presenters sound like they’re all from Essex so I for one have stopped watching. I did email them to ask why they’ve endorsed this policy of having news presenters who are clearly not from Swansea presenting news on a supposedly local Swansea channel unless they have plans to change the name to Bay TV (but all the presenters are from Essex). anyway I got nothing back in reply so no surprises there.

Wrexhamian

David Rowe is simply deluding himself re. the Mold riot. He has been unable to find any primary sources stating that the Welsh language was banned at Leeswood Green Colliery (if there are any, they’ll be in the Newspaper Library at the British Library and can be accessed online for a fee), so he elects to conclude that the story is an invention.

Young, the owner, was a monoglot English-speaking owner from Co. Durham. It stands to reason that, since he would not be able to communicate in Welsh to his workforce (some of whom were monoglot Welsh-speakers) he, as owner, would insist on English being spoken. The relative statuses of the two languages would have enabled him to this without a second thought. He would also have employed English-speaking managers (in one instance causing anger among his workforce by replacing a popular Welsh-speaking manager with an unpopular Englishman).

It stands to reason that he would have no truck with Welsh, much as today’s English managers in the Welsh tourist industry will conduct their dealings with any Welsh-speaking staff in English and not Welsh (consider the example of the Premier Inn in Llandudno that I quoted in Jac’s previous report at the end of May). Being ignorant of the Welsh language, how could tourism managers (or 19th-Century mine owners) run their ‘Welsh’ businesses otherwise?

There is evidence to show that it was the Nonconformist hierarchy that objected to industrial action (of which there was a great deal in the North Wales coalfield in the 19th Century), and no evidence to show that the ordinary people of Mold were against it. If they were, it can only have been owing to brainwashing by the chapel clergy on a Sunday.

Rowe is guilty of bias masquerading as objectivity.

Big Gee

It’s the old Israeli – Palestinian scenario isn’t it?

Wrexhamian

This website gives a list of the many riots and protests (several of which resulted in shootings of rioters/protesters) in Wales from 1740-1991.

http://bdaugherty.tripod.com/cymru/uprisings.html

Eos Pengwern

There’s never any excuse for the sorts of ignorance and rudeness displayed by the Rangers fans in the video, but I can’t stand by and see the Ulster Unionists be used as a punchbag – and I won’t hear a word spoken against Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley, who I think was a Great Man. I’m spending my main summer holiday in Co. Antrim this year and looking forward to spending Sunday morning in one of his denomination’s churches in Ballymena.

I know their view on the Union is very different from ours, but so is their history. For one thing, they have a good claim to be native to the Province because when settlement took place in the 16th and 17th centuries it was largely from Western Scotland that they came – and after all, the population of Western Scotland since about the 7th Century is of Irish origin – otherwise they’d still be speaking Welsh in the kingdom of Dumbarton and throughout all of Strathclyde. For another thing they have a point when they put on their bowler hats and Orange sashes and celebrate their role in preventing all of us from having come under the sway of a foreign theocracy in 1690. I’m certainly grateful to them.

While the case for giving Ireland its independence in the early 20th Century was overwhelming, I can fully understand why the Protestants of the north felt the need for protection from an overbearing Catholic state, led by the proto-fascist Eamonn de Valera. If I were a Ulsterman today, I’d feel equally exposed in what seems rapidly to be becoming an equally intolerant ultra-liberal state; the Republic seems to be swinging from one extreme to the other.

For better or worse, I think that a United Ireland is a historical inevitability, but it would be a terrible shame if Ulster culture had to fall by the wayside and these islands would be the poorer for it.

CambroUiDunlainge

Western Scotland – may not be that simple. Norse-Gaels brought quite the Irish contingent to the shores of western Britain (Scotland and England… Wales… not so much.) For example there are two clans around the Scottish borders – one which has the suffix “-son” where the dominant genetic markers suggest they came from Leinster. The second clan also shares the same genetic markers (Both are Ui Dunlainge). There’s a similar pattern of surnames and settlement between Scotland and Meryside. One of the reasons for this was the expulsion of Vikings from Dublin – as well as just normal Viking settlement along the coasts. Although I can only speak for Laigin settlement (that is Ui Dunlainge and Ua Cheinnselaig) which represent a fraction of the population of Ireland so i dare say there are many more.

Dafis

the 2nd of your bits – relating to the colonial economic model – drew my attention, particularly in that it talks about this marketing curiosity “bottled water”. Much as I like indigenous businesses to survive and prosper I find it hard to square the circle with water. It’s a free good, it falls to earth and flows in streams or aquifers and we collect or extract it for the multitude of purposes that it serves. Then along comes some bright spark and promotes the idea of packaging it in a bottle and flogging it at stupendous margins to thirsty people on the move and particularly those mugs who derive some fashion/lifestyle attribute from being seen bottle in hand.

Princes Gate on its own doesn’t excite me that much, though they have already agitated some feelings down in De Penfro. However once the likes of Nestle move in you can expect rules to be pushed to their limits and beyond and when the aquifer runs low they will fill up from a tap, add required minerals/chemicals and carry on business as usual. Another venture, Ty Nant, was absorbed a few years ago by a multinational as was one based near Trap, near Castell Cennen. So any arguements about the virtues of indigenous owners go out of the window, profits get transferred in line with “tax-efficient” globalist strategy and the business at local level is just another satellite vulnerable to the whims of market fashions and cost control.

At times I see these multinational corporates with interests in marketing of water products as being no better than the water utility companies who just take what they want and ship it to England. Indeed had those water utilities remained in public ownership I would have had little argument with them other than the need for an all Wales water company to collect stock, manage reserves and bi-products (like hydro power ), supply the whole country and sell its surplus to English authorities at a fair economic price. But privatisation took care of that with assets disappearing off into all sorts of holding companies and plc’s. Today’s corporate executives are much more engrossed in finding new ways to drive the share price, secure “reward packages” than to be bothered by what happens to “dwr o’r ffynnon”.

That this has happened right under our noses is a disgrace because believe me the day when water is more important than oil is not that far away. Indeed it may already be with us in some parts of the world and may be a factor soon in driving migratory patterns. And of course as soon as a thirsty “person of colour” arrives in merrie England the Sais will be hurdling Clawdd Offa in even greater numbers.

Dafis

It’s already happening Jac and it’s called railways in UKBritain where they sell you a ticket from A to B then the train doesn’t turn up, or it turns up but doesn’t travel the full distance to its scheduled destination and the concept of “failing to deliver” is avoided at all costs ! Bunch of criminal deadlegs and opportunists, all underwritten by government. Yet another example of profits flowing into the private sector while any losses or liabilities get picked up by the public purse. And Labour approves of this scam and many others like it.

Wynne

If the water table is being lowered as a result of water abstraction it should be a matter of concern to Natural Resources Wales who issue abstraction licences following technical assessment. Their role, as regulator, is to assess the wider impact of any proposal. Is the regulator asleep on the job again I ask myself.

CambroUiDunlainge

When Arlene Foster said she’d not stay in Ireland if it was United (granted she may have little choice in that decision anyway) I thought myself that they dump them on the conveyor belt into Wales. I’m sure Unionist parties would love the reinforcements.

But then again I don’t see Wales being won in the political arena anyway – not until there’s a truly clear divide between all kinds of Welsh and Anglo-Britishness.

CambroUiDunlainge

Ahh I remember that but I’m not a football fan so it may not have registered with me. Learn something every day.